looks at 2012 campaign fund- raising. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning, welcome to "washington journal." president obama went to fema headquarters in washington yesterday to speak with the director of fema about preparations for hurricane sandy, which is threatening the east coast. the president's reelection campaign has changed its schedule for the next few days. so has the mitt romney campaign. the romney senior adviser says there are staying in touch with state officials and visiting states not directly impacted by

the storm. and we would like to hear what you think the impact of hurricane sandy is shaping up to be on campaign 2012. the numbers to call -- host: you can also find this online through social media. send a sick twitter message, twitter.com/c-spanwj. or you can join the conversation on facebook. look for c-span and way in there. you can also e mail us, journal@c-span.org. starting with "the baltimore sun" -- "the candidates crack -- preciously sought to close the deal with voters as this year's

surprise, not a storm, laid waste to their best played -- best laid plans." host: other papers are covering how hurricane sandy is affecting politics. "president obama and opponent, mitt romney, made final arguments to voters as the campaign's dealt with uncertainty." has this changed your plans for early voting? are you looking at how this may affect elections or campaigns

were you live? here is a headline from "the financial times." id says "as the candidates tried to campaign, they are heavily rearranging their schedule, introducing unpredictability into an already razor tight election battle." you can give us a call and tell us where you think the impact will be. this story is from "usa today." one of the angles that could be affected, early voting, indicating a tight race for the white house. "while the campaigns are pointing to absentee and early voting data, there are reasons to be optimistic about the chances. host: let's hear from our first caller this morning.

tom, sioux falls, s.d.. good morning. caller: i think it will be a huge impact on the election. especially if these states lose electricity. it may be a scenario with the electric -- member that last storm, one year ago? if they lose the electricity for one week, 10 days, voting machines will not work. i think the brunt of the storm is going to hit a blue state, as they stay. if it had hit a swing state, this would really be something to watch. host: tom, does it feel like there is a lot of attention focused on this? but you are in south dakota, not impacting you directly. caller: it is, in a way, we are

in one of the worst drought of many years here. we would like to see some of the rain come our way. host: thank you. a.j., that larouche. [dial tone] never mind. looking at how things are shaping up, the strategy from the champagne region from the campaign's has a strategy. this is from "the ohio times." "the last time anyone can remember anyone traveling --

you think?hat do campaigns are shifting their schedules and changing what they are doing. this is "the new york times." "a nightmare makes landfall." "the people running the campaign for president have more than enough fodder for nightmares. worse, come daybreak, their worst fears may come true."

host: joining us now is bob cain, energy editor at politico. he has been looking at the impact of the hurricane on campaign 2012. good morning. thank you for joining us. what are the implications looking like right now in terms of this campaign schedule? caller: they have not cancelled much in terms of appearances,

especially in virginia, a crucial state where significant votes are expected. the president had been scheduled to go to ohio today with bill clinton. that has been cancelled. joe biden was supposed to be there, but is not going to be able to go to new hampshire today. people are trying to move around their appearances, the president basically had a couple of appearances and is then coming back. the white house is basically monitoring conditions. host: we are talking about two different changes to the schedule. one is the practicality of not going to a certain swing state, but the other has to deal with how candidates are perceived. talk to us about that angle. host: mike holly had an interesting story today. no one wants to be seen as

politicizing a storm, but on the other hand they have a job to do next week. no one has talked about suspending their campaign. after the john mccain experience four years ago, no one would actually use that phrase. there are unpredictable ways in which this could affect people. no one wants to be seen as trying to take political of vantage of this. but the effect could include things like not being able to make appearances in swing states, early voting, or power outages lasted long enough, voting could be disrupted. the fact that nobody can really tell -- it will be difficult to get the message out. voters in crucial areas will not be paying attention to the

federal election or campaign messages or the last-minute flurry of advertisements that everyone basically sits on cash for if they do not have power. both candidates are losing their opportunity to send their message to voters. there is the unknown impact on the much discussed ground game that the obama campaign was relying on to get the voters out to the polls. you also argue that mitt romney is the one who has ground to make up in a crucial swing states, like ohio and virginia. it will make it difficult for him. right now it is hard to tell whose campaign is going to be most affected. host: early voting, are you looking at how the race to get those votes in the bank before election day rolls around might be impacted?

caller: we are. most of the states do not have early voting. pennsylvania, for example, does not have early voting. virginia does not allow it unless you have a special exception that allows you to vote absentee before the election. north carolina, which is an early casualty of hurricane sandy, has early voting. the question of just, basically, which ones are going to be affected most, it is hard to say. maryland suspended early voting today. and the other hand, that is a safely blue state, so that will probably not impact the outcome. host: jody rights in -- host: are the campaign's looking at what kind of impact of this could have in terms of big repercussions?

are they seeing this storm as that event now? caller: some people are seeing this as the october surprise and no one knew what that would be, perhaps. we were calling it the katrina factor the other day. the bush administration, they're not terribly effective response to hurricane katrina shadowed the rest of the bush presidency. besides the huge humanitarian cost, which resulted, no president wants to be seen under responding to a storm. that, besides the fact that you want to safeguard the american public, would suggest there would be a big response from the obama administration. there is only so much to you in do. a storm like this in new york,

that is something we have not seen for a long time. there is certainly the earth -- possibility for people to say, rightly or wrongly, that the federal government did not respond appropriately. i have not seen any signs that any major figure in the republican party is trying to do that. unlike when some people immediately decided that hurricane irene would be the obama katrina. a couple people, including newt gingrich, suggested a quick response this time was at odds with the respond." pose -- at odds with the response posed to the staff in benghazi, libya. we will have to wait to see what the response is. host: final question for you -- how was this impacting the journalists that cover the campaign?

caller: one thing that we are expecting an impact on, e-mail and electricity service in the washington, d.c. area. there are contingency plans for that kind of emergency. i am not the person in charge of .hat host: bob, thank you so much for covering that force this morning. we would like to hear what you think the impact could be. bill writes in on twitter -- host: looking at some of the front pages of the newspapers as they cover the storm, this is from "the new york daily news."

"shot, city braces for a monster." of the store is looking at the potential impact of the storm. "destructive potential of the storm tops the scale." bill, florida, what do you think the impact could be on campaign 2012? >> being in florida, florida has received more hurricanes than any other state in the nation and we don't seem to be disrupted whit comes to voting times host: so you're not worried about it. caller: i am in terms of any bad weather. i've been watching the three debates and the white tie dinner in chicago, i've watched all the debates on c-span so far.

host: when you say the white -- the fancy dress event, are you talking about the al smith dinner in new york? caller: that's right. everybody has made shots at mr. biden. they don't realize he's only a heart beat away from being the commander in chief of this country. host: good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i don't know which party it's going to hurt more or help for that matter. i think it's just going to end the race for the president early because i think something like this is going to overshadow everything like. and i think you're hot. host: let's go to mayor on our republican line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i just want to make a comment

on barack obama. the democrats created fanny may to help the poor people and the carters added fanny mack so the government could lend money to the poor. and then bill clinton and his friends doubled down on low interest loans. and then in 2006, the democrats took over the house. hair reed and barney frank borrowed two of the largest loans and obama borrowed the third largest loan which caused banks to collapse so i don't know why everybody blames bush for this mess when in my eyes it's the democrats that caused it. and barack obama -- host: how much are you looking at how the candidates perform

over the next couple of days and handle a difficult situation? caller: well barack obama has proven he cannot be trusted. host: good morning. caller: it's kind of a funny thing that these people go all over the world telling other nations how to rule and the majority of the american people don't know how to vote. you got barack obama for the mess the country was in and all of a sudden the country forgot what he done. now what they're doing, the republicans [inaudible] you wait until romney get in there. see how you like that. host: roger we have a comment coming in on twitter that says

-- what do you think about that? caller: well i was born in the caribbean and when i was a kid i used to wait for -- host: there was some talk yesterday looking at how the storm could impact the campaign. here is what was said on cnn let's take a listen. >> in terms of how it affect it is election, i don't think anybody knows. we want access to the polls because we believe that the more people come out, the better we're going to do. and so to the extent that it makes it harder, you know, that's a source of concern. but i don't know how all the politics will sort out. it depends on how different areas are impacted and so the best thing we can do is focus on how we can help people during this storm and hope that

it all cleers out by the next weekend will be free of it and people can focus on the election. host: let's go to bob in pennsylvania democratic caller. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. you know these report thears call in. i would love them to look up on google it's called cooperation from the sea. and also on c-span you had a guest who is the deputy press et shay to the russian president put unanimous. he was december 10, 2006 and i was on from 7: 10 to 11: 15 many minutes. and it may be wise to look up both sites. host: why are these important

to you? caller: because i would love to see how both the president and his candidate running against him would react if russia sent help to the people stranded by this storm. thank you. host: looking some more at the sunday talk shows and the impact speculation about the impact of hurricane sandy. here's what governor bob mcdonald a republican speaking on the air on cnn. >> we have contingency in place. we had the third largest power outage in history and got everything back on in seven days. we've got 2,000 additional people coming into virginia to help us. and the state board of election social security planning for extended hours in advance for absentee voting and it's a

priority moved up to the level of hospitals and politicians to have power. we'll be ready but we're planning if there is a problem. host: here is "the new york times" giving context what is happening in his state of virginia. it says it went unnoticed by non-that virginia may be among the most affected by the hurricane. it says early voting is a key to this which mr. obama has counted on to boltster a second term will likely grind to a halt while power failures could last much of the week and conceivably until election day in some places. let's go to carl from west virginia on our republicans line. caller: good morning. i'm sure they will be blaming this on george bush. next week the liberal media will be comparing the great job

obama did compared to what bush did in katrina. and i hope he does a better job than he did protecting our people in benghazi. i was a former combat marine and i'm disgusted about the way he hand that would thing in benghazi. thank you. host: caller jon in north carolina comments on the same lines as you. he writes benghazi is the storm that sealed the election. here is what the romney campaign is doing as they look at this storm. it says one of his senior advisors said despite impended wall to wall coverage on sandy he feels voters in the region have received enough information ahead of the election and reiterated the campaign's focus on the safety and well being for those in the

storm's path. this is senior advice sor to the romney campaign. mat independent caller good morning caller: good morning. i was calling about president obama in regard to the hurricane. and i don't know people have short memories when florida got hit by a terrible storm and president obama was the first person to go down there and disperse funds. at the i forget, it was the governor of florida, i forget his name but he was republican and he embraced the president and shook his hand and hugged him. and right after that, the whole republican party pretty much disregarded and got rid of that guy.

host: you talking about governor charlie christ? caller: yeah. he became an independent and he was at the democratic convention and gave a news speech. but if this guy do anything good or bad, he's going to be criticized for it and it's a sad thing because the people is the only people that surf. we are the people that are surfing. he hasn't been able to get a thing passed since he's been in office. he's the only president been told he was a one-term president. and they dam calleded him a -- host: don't use that language on the air. we'll go on to another caller in a moment. let's look at what the romney campaign is doing in response

to the storm. home romney was supposed to be in virginia. and a tuesday event in virginia headlined by paul ryan have been cancelled. campaign stoppeders in virmingvirge are collecting supplies. ed to in wiss today in wisconsin democrats line. caller: you can listen to the headlines from fox news already

that the president is going to fail miserable bli. that's the only plan they have is to bash the president at every single turn. they have no other answer other than bashing the president to make themselves look good. and as far as romney's campaign plan for the storm. they are no president. they have no power. all they can do is sit back and talk. so you can watch the headlines and all the conservative talk shows and the president fails. i tell you right now what the story is going to be. and that's basically all i have to say. host: let's look at how the obama campaign is retuning its depame plan in the wake of the storm.

president is not attending an event in florida because of the hurricane. he is leaving florida to head back to washington. this is a report from the white house pool that covers the president. the president met yesterday with the head of fema and that's information we shared with you earlier. it says he also met with other emergency officials for an update on the storms path and the danger it poses. you can see him there with the fema agency deputy strait tor and the head of people massachusetts looking at what they talked about president obama said he's put out phone calls to governors and spoken with them. and there is more information about that. we'll hear more about that later in the program. charles joins us now from north

carolina on our republican line. caller: i just want to call about the hurricane. i feel like it's going to devastate new york city. but the same people need to stop and sernl their hearts about if president obama is re-elected it's going to devastate this country. so that's something we all need to think about because i'm 53 years old and i've never seen an administration run like this one has been run. everybody knees to talk about ben goss by. fox is the only one talking about it. everybody else is raking it off to the side. host: janet independent caller good morning. caller: i'm calling pped in and i'm shocked that i got in because i try just about every morning. i don't know why everyone is interested about this impact on

the election. but i feel like the president jumped in there right away and this is something we haven't ever seen from him. so i guess maybe sooner or later he does learn something or what have you. but i know that mitt romney did start making preparations and getting people to bring in donations to some of these states that are going to be affected. but i feel that there is a lot more at stake here than probably anyone knows and i believe that main stream media tomorrow morning will or the next morning and the next morning will really jump behind president obama and try to give him a boost that he needs in order to win this election. but i'm just hoping that people

like myself who have made a decision many months ago before benghazi, before all of this will maintain their conviction that this president has not done what he has promised he would do. and he only makes a big splash when he starts sliding in the polls or what have you. host: you mentioned the media. how closely do you watch the candidates that newspaper editorial bords endorse. is that something you pay attention to? caller: i probably put more hours in a day on looking upton internet and reading newspapers and watching c-span, msnbc, local news shows, bloorg, fox,

i don't watch a lot because i find t it is like msnbc, both of them are buysed for their cause and msnbc is totally biased for obama. i do a lot of research for myself and people should. host: the des moines register endorsed mitt romney as a candidate and we'll be looking at the battleground state of iowa this morning. we're doing a whole series looking at battleground states. so we'll check in with a news man in iowa this morning. host: hello. caller: i've never called in before but it seems like i have a lot of opinions on this election where as the previous

one i've only voted one other time tabbed previous time i didn't really pay much attention to. but in regard to the hurricane, obviously i'm in cspan.org, it's not like it's a threat to me, but i think that with recent events benghazi and whatnot, it really is going to be a testament as to how obama is going to respond to this. and maybe he might gain some votes back from people he lost them from depending on how he respond to it. and i mean, i think that it's kind of ify with all of the campaigning that is going on during this time but i think people would be good to understand that they still have a job to do, there is still an election to be won and it's still going to happen. and this hurricane, though it will, i think, impact some of

the voting and people may not get their votes in or whatnot, then i think that people who are serious about this election have already done it. and i don't know, i guess that's my piece. and i'll definitely be watching obama closely because i do hope that romney does win this election, i've made my choice and already voted. i think if he doesn't it's interesting to see what kind of president we do have. because after recent events, benghazi and whatnot, the president has lost a lot of respect and i think that's nationwide. i don't think it's just on the republican side. and so like i said, regardless i'll be watching closely to see how obama reactes to this and looking for a lot of compassion. so that's where i'm at. host: let's listen to president obama yesterday at fema.

>> so my main message to everybody involved is that we have to take this seriously. the federal government is working effectively with the state and local governments. it's going to be very important that populations in all the impacted states take this serious lirks listen to your state and local elected officials. my message to the governors as well as to the mayors is anything they need we will be there and we're going to cut through red tape. and we're not going to get bogged down with a locality of rules. we want to make sure we're anticipating into making sure we've got the best possible response to what is going to be a big and messy system. host: let's go to an independent callinger from louisiana. good morning.

caller: good morning. i was calling, it seems like this is a met forethis unprecedented weather condition. we've had many droughts, floods contributed to climate change. now there are a group of wealthy old men who have convinced a lot of oop people that climate change is unreal. there are a lot of people surfing from this as well in the financial climate promoted by the same group of people. at what point -- now president obama is going to have to clean up this mess and get criticized for it the whole time he's doing the best he can. at what point do we start holding the people that led us into this responsible? isn't this the party of responsibility and if they used all their wealth and pow tore convince us will there is no

climate change they should be empty to make people hold who are helpless to changing anything. and here again, this is a problem created by that group of people t climate change and they still don't believe it. they said they [inaudible] 24r should be a personal responsibility and somebody should pay. make all these people who were warned about this know what was going to happen. host: let's look at a comment on facebook. here is what phil writes drk

>> james joins us from georgia caller: good morning. i wopt my vote on other's well being especially. i hate to see an independent's vote wasted by taking a shot at bush. i want to urge all independents to really look at the character and just pay attention please. and you've seen the last four years the way they've gone.

and i'm 30 recently married and i'm playing that romney makes it in. and i'm praying for all of those people in the storm. and i'm playing there are a lot of people out there like me. that's all i have to say. host: jim in massachusetts independent caller, good morning. caller: i agree with the guy in louisiana. and another thing i always notice that the voter suppression isn't being mentioned that much on fox. number two, also one of romney's sons are primarily investors in the voting machines. so let's hope we don't get another bush 2 like we did in florida where the supreme court is basically working for the corporations on top of that man tan to's genetically engineered modified food, waste water from

coke's power prant. don't be surprised if cancer goes up and then everybody will be playing for obama care because the insurance companies will bankrupt everybody. here is your upper crust old witch old money that's basically blackmailing everybody with their taxpayer money for their vote. and if you think you're getting the impression that you're free, i i've got two word for you the property act. >> let's gock to the "washington post."

host: chris on the democrats line. caller: good morning. i pray for everybody who will be affected by this storm. things to remember about elections that everything is local. the way this storm will affect this will be decided by local officials. for example, on september 1,

2001, there were supposed to be lecks. in new york city they postponed the election and changed the way it would result. in new haven where i live, they had the election and thus a progressive candidate who had a chance of winning lost the possibility of winning because nobody came to vote because the election was held in the middle of a national disaster. so i'm really worried about how this will play out. and i sure hope people in connecticut vote for chris murphy because we don't need the queen of wrestle mania running our state or national elections, -- you know what i mean. host: since you brought up new york let's look at this piece in the wall street journal.

host: the headline says -- fox news also looks at how hurricane sandy could increase the congressional workload.

he writes this on the fox news blog -- if this hurricane is as bad as predicted congress could tackle a spending bill this year to help those in need. host: looking at the race for the white house in campaign 2012 there is another story in the "wall street journal" that says the ohio race plows ahead, a romney aad hits the president on the bailout of the auto industry. host: yesterday on fox news sunday rob talked about the race in ohio. let's listen. >> mentioned the 2.3% in

obama's favor. that is because the polls are closing. the latest was this morning showing the race is a dead heat. i feel like the momentum is on our side. i've been at six rallies the last week and a dozen centers around the state and the energy is on our side this year. it's interesting to watch. we were down five or ten points before the debate. after the debate we're dead even and it's moving our way. host: that was on fox yesterday. and here is a story on analysis. it looks at key battleground states. the "washington journal" is taking a look at a number of battleground states this month

as we head into the election. later this month we'll look into ohio and later colorado. we'll take one more call from the democrats line. caller: everything is shut down in new york city but i have to make three big points. number one for me is we should not politicized weather t. president, senators, congress, nobody is responsible for the weather, that's number one. so i'm surprised that gove nor went out there and made a statement about collin powell's endorsement yet there is no conversation about that here on c-span. my second point to su collin powell's secretary of state made a phenomenal statement

about the republican party and he said that his party was full of a whole lot of racist. with those kind of statements from two people that are visible in our government and has been, why isn't c-span talking about that? host: let's talk about it right now. here is the second page of the "washington post." this is in the fix and it looks at top romney advisors comment. he said when you have somebody of your own race you're proud of being president of the united states. i aplude collin for standing with him. that's when asked about his endorsement of president obama. he later backed off that the aserlings was based on race. that's in the "washington post" this morning. and one last tweet. viven writes in -- thanks for

all of your calls. coming up on the show we'll look at the latest in campaign finances in campaign 2012. and later on our series on iowa. we'll be right back. >> all of our e-mail is stored

on a server at google and it's interesting we as a society have given our information out. >> we were looking into cyber and cyber security and cyber war. the pentagon had declared cyberspace the environment of people and machines and networks as a new do main of war. and yet, we realize that maybe one in a thousand people understood what cyberspace was and the degree and denth of vellner abilities and so what we're trying to do is take pieces of it and explain the fund meantles and the platonic idea is that everybody from my mom and dad to congress and people around the country can understand and so maybe start the process of coming up with ways to defend cyberspace better. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on

the communicate tors on c-span2. >> it's a great source of information for the public so if you want to know what is going on with legislation or policy, c-span has it covered. >> i like "book tv" because i get to see authors peeking around the country. >> c-span offers the news as it's happening. it doesn't offer commentary, it's just telling you the facts so you can make your own decision. the decisions are not being told to you and that is interesting. people who want to be engaged in solet and know what is going on. >> c-span created by america's companies in 1979. brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> "washington journal"

continues. >> bob biersack is looking at the money of campaign 2012. host: do we know all we know about how much money has been raced and how much they're spending as we head into election day? guest: we got reports as of the 17th day of october. that's the last report we'll get. when they spend money, especially when these outside organizations spend money, they'll have to report every 24 hours now what they spent. so we'll see more but the big picture is pretty well defined host: both the campaigns are expected to raise $1 billion each. what does it say about the election? guest: it says their close. it says people are engaged so they've been able to raise that kind of money. also the president's campaign in 2008 got to about $1

billion. it's not inprecedented but for both of them to be there it is. host: there are the campaigns themselves but the other groups as well. guest: yeah the campaigns are different. the obama campaign has been successful racing about $630 million so far while the romney campaign is somewhat less under $400 million. but the political parties the rep cab can national committee has raced more than the dem corporate i can national committee. but you can see team blue and red which represent it is campaigns plus the parties plus the new feature this year which is these outside spending organizations that have played an important role especially for the romney campaign. and if you go down to the bottom or click the link you

can see how that breaks down for those three kind of organizations. and the outside groups supporting romney's candidacy have out spent obama groups by three to one. that is what has made the difference and equal liesed the financial process this year. so both about $1 billion already. host: we're looking at the website opensecrets dot org. >> here are the numbers to call -- host: we're talking with bob biersack. other organize shagse it is "washington post" among them are tracking the money and

following where it's coming from and how it's being spent. and they break it down by the campaigns, also the committees, the dnc and r.n.c. and super pac's. but there is undies closed money. guest: these are primarily what we're calling social really fair organize shagses. they register under the tax code 501 c 4. the organizations that are primarily about educating people about issues or policy options and things like that but they're allowed to do some political activity. it can't be the main thing they're about. the decisions from 2010 that are so famous they can be more specific in the way they're involved. the things that define the

elections are -- because they're mainly about enl indicating people have been able to do that without disclosing the sources of the money that they've gotten. so tense or hundreds of millions of dollars being spent without us knowing where it actually came from. host: let's go to our democrats line. caller: what i would like to say about this money, i feel like this money is basically it's generations of money which a lot of elderly white people have built up over time when the system was discriminatory. now they have come out and decided to buy an election. this money is not taxed or nothing. they need to start taxing this money at 90%. if the rich people don't want to pay more taxes, they want to take the tax money because taxes are lower and use it in

the election. i think it should be taxed at 90% like in the 30's and 40's. host: i was going to ask him if he donated money to a campaign. we'll ask our callers that. talk to us ability small money and large money. guest: that is another deminches this campaign. the obama campaign beginning in 2,000 ailingt but continuing this year has relied on smull contributions from individual people. it's a lot easy crer to do that this year as the technology changes it's pretty straightforward to go to a website and put in a cred card number. so the campaigns have followed that and that was successful for the obama campaign and continues to be this year. you can raise big contributions too. it's important to remember that direct contributions to the candidate are still limits. only $2500 per election so

$5,000 per candidate. and there are prohibitions on who can give money to the candidates. unions are not permitted to make contributions. that's been the law for more than 40 years and it still is. they're about to spend their own money independently of the campaign if they want to but they can't make contributions. presidential candidates raise money at the national level. there are a loft of wealthy individuals who support them. so the obama campaign stands out in that respect a little bit. the caller is making another point which is that the money in this race this year has been much more focused in many respects on a small number of individual people. the attention in this spending is focused on a small number of people who have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the process. i think the number that gets you to a majority of the money

-- about 60% of the outside money has been raced from about 200 individuals. so the number of people you could fit on an airplane have been an important group in funding these outside efforts this year. and that's different and i think we need to watch to see whether those financial resources can become more important in elections. that's a question whether this has been effective or annoying for citizens in the battleground states. i live in virginia and it's unrelenting the television advertising and that's true around the country. how effective it is, whether it makes a difference in the election is a different question. but it's true a small number of people played very prominent roles this year. host: let's look at a list of those names.

you can see their names here and the amount of money they've thrown into super pac's. we also are seeing some questions about what kind of game changer super pac's were and the "new york times" has this story. even obama is in the tv ad race sfite the pax. and it says maybe the super pac's weren't so super after all. sfite warnings from president obama and his party that a flood of -- guest: as we can see it's this grouping of campaigns and these groups that matter and there the finances are about equal t. obama campaign has been clever in taking advantage of one

aspect of this as candidates are favered as opposed to other groups and spaces can only cause campaigns the lowest rate for advertising. that means they have to charge them the rate they give to their best customers who advertise regularly. so campaigns get a better price than the outside groups or party organization when they're buying ad time. so that translates into the difference in the amount of ads you see host: let's hear from the republican line, loren in ohio. y could have a credit card and that a large amount of money is coming from overseas to the obama campaign, i have heard. somebody must have caught that,

because it made the news. guest: foreign nationals are not permitted to make contributions in american collections. it would be illegal if this were happening. the campaigns themselves are responsible for making sure that the donations they get are from allow oil sources -- allowable sources. the way in which they had checked credit card contributions or other contributions is up to them. there's no federal law that dictates how that has to happen. at the end of the day, it's their responsibility to make sure they are not getting its foreign money. in 2008 this question came up before, for the obama campaign. they do have procedures in place to monitor that. the federal election commission audited that campaign in 2008

and did not find a problem. so different organizations have different strategies, but they all must make sure that no foreign nationals are contributing. host: pat is on the independent line in vienna. caller: we have spending caps on major sports and would make everything so transparent for everything within the country, yet how can we allow foreign entities to contribute to our elections?ential corporations should not even be able to contribute to elections either. it should. who is the best person qualified and love for country. guest: we understand these big numbers. it feels like somehow that the

money and the votes are really closely related, so a person with the most money will win. they usually do, but probably for other reasons. money cannot buy you love. it cannot necessarily by u- bo 0- -- buy yo9u votes. -- you votes. almost every time a challenger needs an incumbent in a congressional race, order spends less than the incumbent they defeated. you have to have enough money to be visible so people can evaluate you and see you and hear your message. other things are important for voters as well. they make their judgments individually. so the money is important. it is necessary in some respects, but it's not enough. and it is not just a competition for dollars. at the end of the day, it's a competition for votes. host: how much of the campaign's

use individual reflection for their ground game? we a book that people who give floor and donations versus higher end. -- we have looked at. >> what we saw in 2008, which was phenomenal, people made pointed dollar contributions and continued coming back. something would energize them in the campaign and they would contribute again, because they were still well under the limit. that means you could have a continuing flow of revenue. and it means the support is more locked in. those people have a vested interest in the process and are surely going. to going the role of small money is hopeful in this process, that this campaign has shown us, but you really can be viable and effective with a fairly big

reliance on small contributions. that may democratize the process. it may spread out the ability to have influence in financial ways that we have not really expected and it's more hopeful than these two and did people. host: we can see in the washington post and the individuals that may give candidates up to $2,500 per election, a primary or the general. it shows us that president obama's campaign has raised more money from donors giving $200 or less. this is the high end, over $2,000. that is larger than the midrange, so it is peaking repair and then going down and coming back up after 2000. the romney campaign has raised more money from donors giving over $2,000. when we look at the rnc, the committee, both committees have

raised more money from donors giving $5,000 or less. so there are some smaller donors for the committee's. >> the romney model is the more common model for presidential campaigns. usually you find people around the country who are influential and wealthy and have lots of friends and you encourage them to give contributions in bundles, to collect unlimited contributions from their associates and friends and businesses and that will generate significant amounts of money. bit of a problem for the romney campaign this year. once you've got a $5,000, you are finished with that person, then you have to find a new one. you cannot go back over and over to the same people, the way the obama campaign as for those giving $20 or $50. that means you constantly need to spread the effort. this is the first time really, since 1972, that this campaign has been completely privately

financed. there was public money in the presidential campaign from 1976 through 2004 for both candidates and for the matt cain campaign even in 2008. so it's a different world and there's a lot more fund-raising going on these days than before. host: now on the democratic line, margot,. caller: thanks for taking my call. when i look at the campaigns, it seems to me the republicans have rich on their side, so it seems like the rich against poor. it and how the campaigns operate? like it is the rich against poor? i am more inclined to vote for someone who has everybody's best interest at heart. i don't understand why others don't think that way. i think president obama has my

best interest at heart as well as the rich. they just don't see it. guest: i think both campaigns are interested in getting as broad as support as they possibly can. it moves back and forth between the parties. in 2004, there were large contributions that were allowed for some outside organizations that were active in that campaign as well. most of them were democrats. there were mostly supporting the kerrey campaign. so it shipped back and forth. the important question, the important challenge and a problem is how much these really small numbers of people,, to include they have on the process, how much they can control what types of messages are sent, if what the voters here, what type of choices are able to be made by elected

officials either in congress or the white house? the range of options is narrowed by who is likely to support you. that is something we are looking at closely at opensecrets.org and something we will have to walk down the road. we will see how it works. host: opensecrets.org is from the center for responsive politics and its tracks money in politics. here's a question on twitter -- guest: what they are doing is called joint fund-raising, so they're making that contribution at one time and a big portion of it goes to the party organization. in national committees are allowed to accept up to $30,800 from each person each year. state parties can acceptance thousand dollars per year from people. and there's an overall limit on how much you as a person can

give in an election cycle. you cannot just keep passing these around without any limits, but the limits are much bigger for parties than for the campaigns. so they get together and take this one check for one pavement and split it up among those there for organizations. so the campaigns are really only directly getting $5,000 of that money, but they can be pretty confident it's all being spent on behalf of that presidential candidates. int: let's hear from tom texas, a republican. caller: thanks for taking my call. the democrats and your guests aboard providing the billions and billions of unlimited and unregulated dollars spent every year campaigning for democrats and producing reliably, consistently bogus, false attack ads against republican's by these virulence militant leftists super pacs like abc, nbc, cbs, pbs, npr, cnn, the new

york times? the million dollars from the new york times that they spend every year to produce this product and pay its employees is enough, don't you? host: are you calling the media outlets super pacs? caller: definitely, they are political lobbying groups. guest: the first amendment to the constitution as a provision that talks about the press. so there has always been in the rules about financing campaigns an exemption for news organizations. there are no restrictions on what people can write in newspapers or can express on television. they are very careful to separate their editorial opinions and the editorial pages and their own perspectives from the news. that is their profession. it encourages them to be as objective as they can. so everybody is free to judge

those messages as they come from the media and there are lots of them in very different forms in this era than there have been in the past. but there's an exemption in the constitution that allows them to spend money that way without any restrictions. host: let's look at the latest campaign finance numbers. bob, how significant is the money in this last month versus

the money of prior months? guest: now it ships a little bit from advertising on television, from general messages, to the kinds of things that mobilize voters. focusing on the ground, getting out and going door-to-door in the important neighborhoods and calling and mailing to the people you have already a identified as your supporters, to try to make sure if they will get out and vote on election day. that becomes the message now. the rules of gatt trade are expensive as well. seven people in place and having the technology that allows you to know which doors to knock on and which phones to call. that is where it is shifting now. -- having people in place. neither one of these candidates will win or lose because they had too little money. they have an extraordinary campaign, very sophisticated, very elaborate. they have been able to do pretty much whatever they needed to do, they think, in their own minds, to communicate with voters.

so it's not really going to be a matter of money. we watch it and follow it intently sometimes because i think it is a measure of how things are going. the romney campaign has been pretty effective in raising money lately and throughout the general election. in some ways it is not surprising. this is different from what we have seen for almost 40 years. so we're learning as we go. but the money will be a focus now mobilizing people to get out and vote early and then to vote on. election. host: the new york times looks at the money raised and spent over the last month. let's go to jill in jasper, georgia, independent line. caller: i just wanted to say i

worked for a place called the tides foundation. we took in money from aarp, progressive insurance, coca- cola, epa, even tax money, out of country money, and we laundered it, said it up through the ranks. and your list of donors to obama is not correct. tides needs to be audited. it is a funny name for laundering money. i've got a list he would not believe of people that donate money, like the brazilian billion that went to brazil to be funneled back. it's on and on. they need to be audited, seriously. host: you say you work for a company that launders money? .aller: it's in louisiana i stopped working there. i've got paperwork and everything i'd like to publish. i would like to give it to

craig and let him deal with it. it's the most corrupt place i worked in my life. people ought to check into it. it is a shady doings down there. guest: it's pretty clear in a law that you're not allowed to make a contribution in the name of another person. no one can give money to someone else and say make this contribution and claim that it's yours but i. will pay i. if that happens, there are ways in which you as an individual citizen can file a complaint with the federal elections commission and they will look into those kinds of things. but it's absolutely not permitted to do what you are describing, which is to make a contribution in the name of another and certainly not from overseas. host: becky in new york, a democratic caller, good morning -- vicki. are you with us? amanda is on our independent

line in texas. caller: i understand there are things going out in other ,tates that are not true, cd's the movie they made, as proven not to be true. going out to people in florida. i noticed there is only nine latter-day saints church in the united states. do you think romney is trying to influence through his religious beliefs? host: so you're talking about an anti-obama movie? caller: yes, it has been sent out. and i notice there's only nine latter-day saints trenches in the u.s. that romney the longstalk lane. host: do you want to comment on the money in campaign 2012? caller: some states will not

allow his turkish to be built in their state. host: she brought up religion, so let's talk about the role of churches, parishes, synagogues can play in the campaign and whether they are allowed to contribute. guest: they're not criminals not contributing directly to the campaigns, just like a corporation could not contribute. so we're not seeing money come directly from religious organizations. but certainly people's beliefs, people's attitudes toward important political issues are sometimes if shaped by their religious beliefs. and they have been important to populations -- they have been important population, people you can rely on in the election, since they are older and have

certain religious beliefs. but they cannot play a financial goal. host: john is a democrat. caller: i just wanted to say that bush, romney, and the republicans have set up this tax structure which helps these companies take our jobs overseas for cheaper labor. and the internet will also suck up a lot of jobs in the coming future. you can have a job almost anywhere, so all the tax money but being received, i believe, is going to go to corporations who are going to invest it in prisons, to house people cheaply, and to make sure they don't have to pay social security and welfare, because everybody will be in jail. host: since we are talking abou

are spendings money, are you seeing a lot of ads on the radio -- hearing a lot of ads on radio or seeing them on tv? caller: i am. they set things to fall under this president make him look bad because it had already been in the process and they knew he could not stop it. then they would change it back into a police state once they get back in and put everybody in jail and take everybody's houses and stuff. host: let's look at the battleground states. the new york times shows where money is being spent on advertisements. you can see the key battleground states in the darkest color is where the spending is happening.

a lot of negative ads. 91% of the ads supporting romney are negative and 85% of the ones supporting obama r-as well. guest:-messages can work in campaigns, they can resonate with people -- negative messages. especially for candidates you have not shaped an opinion about yet. at that point, those kinds of messages, if they have some grains of truth in them, then they can be effective. at the very end of the campaign, the same thing is true. i grew up in and i spoke with my sister last night on the phone. she was trying to find out if she voted early that maybe they would stop calling. it's unrelenting. it's not just on television.

now it is shifting to the mailbox and the telephone. they really are focus completely on making sure they identify all their supporters and get them to the polls one way or another either on election day or in many states involved early, so they are doing that. we will find out how sophisticated these organizations are. it certainly is possible who to possible who votes early. if they put it in their database, maybe because of a stop to those people. i did think it was funny that she would think of that. host: bob biersack, we're talking about the influence of money on campaign 2012. let's go to oklahoma city to hear from steve, a democrat. caller: hi. i have been hearing a lot of the discussion regarding the presidential aspects of things. from what i have seen in the news, it sounds like there's a lot of money going into the congressional races.

i want to know how that relates to the whole pool of money you are discussing broaden your scope from the presidential end of things to congressional races. when you go to vote, when you look down nancy mitt romney, think george bush. he has the same for policy people that got us into. into-- when you look down and think georgeney, ac bush. guest: the makeup of the senate in particular, the control of the senate is in question, it's possible the republicans, if they win four seats or five seats, they will have control of the next congress and that could make a big difference. there are small number states and some of them have small populations, like montana and other places around the country where it's relatively cheap to be involved in a big way on

television or in other ways of communicating with a relatively small number of voters. so there's a lot of focus on those senate races. and this weekend i spent time looking at some house races. there are about 60 across the country that are up for grabs it. they are pretty close. the campaigns are raising a lot of money in those districts. certainly, more than $1 million for each candidate and often more than $2 million or $3 million. it was noteworthy that these outside groups in many of these districts, in 15 or so of these 60 closest house races, more money has been spent by the outside groups that has been spent by the candidates combined. in almost half of those races, in about 30 cases, more money spent for particular candidate by outside groups than that candidate has spent on their own. so they're playing a big role in these elections, that's right. ultimately, now we've seen outside money go past $1 billion

as well. we keep using this billion dollars and it seems to be everywhere. it's kind of hard to get your head around $1 billion represents, but a great deal of that money, a significant portion of it is going to the house and senate campaigns around the country. it may play a bigger role there than it does in the presidential. host: here's a u.s. news story about fund-raising for the candidates for house and senate.

looking at republicans versus democrats, in that graphic. guest: in the house, the republicans now have an advantage because many more incumbents are republican. incumbents are always able to raise money faster generally than their challengers or sometimes even candidates in open seat races. it's not surprising the republicans raised more. there are a number of viable democratic challengers. about 60 districts around the country that are really competitive. in those races, the money is fairly equally divided. host: dennis in milwaukee, wisconsin, democratic line. caller: i find it funny that no matter how many times he has told people that it is against a lot to get outside money from other countries, some people

keep calling and saying it is being done, which i don't think either campaign would allow. that's all i've got to say. guest: those are always complicated questions. we are talking about millions and millions of contributions. and many of them don't have to be specifically identified and reported. if you don't give more than $200 to a candidate, then your specific information is not disclosed to the federal elections committee, so we cannot see it. a large portion of someone's money, it is coming in those small amounts, then it's natural to wonder where that money is coming from. so i guess i understand why these rumors or uncertainty about that process exists, but i think you're right. it is a big risk. is no question about the legality. it's absolutely prohibited. ultimately, the campaign is responsible for making sure it does not happen.

the downside risk, the consequences, if there really was a problem, are so big that it's hard to imagine any major campaign would take that kind of risk. host: lake placid, florida, richard on our independent line. caller: good morning. the caller from wisconsin has to be very naive. with billions of dollars that have come from outside the country during the 1990's with clinton in power, billions were coming from china. it went into the democratic national committee and they have to pay back some of it. janet reno refused to investigate. the way they do it today is through the non-government organizations like tides is one of them, apollo, acorn. president obama helped to organize a corn. -- acorn.

guest: there were some cases in the 1990's. it is often individuals who are bundling contributions, influential people getting their friends and colleagues together to make contributions, and sometimes, i think, naively, people who are foreign nationals think they can gain some influence, and get some leverage in the government may be why being important donors. we have seen that in a few races over time, were these individual people might break a law that way. alternately, when it is discovered, and it usually is, one way or another someone will take into this -- often it is journalists that go to contributions from a single address, lots of them, or from people whose occupations look like they should not really have that kind of funds t